Thursday, January 22, 2009

GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 2

My game of the week this week is probably one of the most addictive games I've ever played. It's No One Can Stop Mr. Domino for the PlayStation. The game's protagonist is (GASP!) Mr. Domino... Or Ms. Domino, or a small variety of other dominos. The point of the game is to... Well... Lay dominoes. You run around on a two-and-a-half D plane laying down a trail of dominoes in order to trigger switches, that will activate somewhere else on the stage, and they can keep your chain going if you set it up right. The switches start out as little things, like making a stack of dice fall down or just raising up a little tiny slope, to bigger things, like triggering a roller coaster or summoning a tank. It's not as easy as it sounds though. You have a limited number of dominoes, so you can't just lay them down wherever you feel. You have to use them sparingly if you want to set up a chain ranging across the level. You do get your dominoes back, though, after you knock some over. (You knock them over in some hot domino-on-domino action. Well... Mr. Domino just runs into your dominoes and knocks them over.) You have a time limit as well. Overtime, your domino gradually fades to black and slows down. (You'd think turning black would make him run faster, wouldn't you?) This game has very simple gameplay that's easy to learn and difficult to master. The balance between action and puzzling is absolutely perfect, but hard for me to explain, so I'll have YouTube do it instead. As with most of my favorite games, this game has a very strong Japanese personality that doesn't appear to have been translated... At all. (The menus have been translated, but this game is obviously VERY Japanese.)

Video by WTFOMGMyNameDoesntFi

This game has great music too. I would have put up another video that came with the music, but this was the only one I could find.